A Weezer remix! Hell yeah! Indaba Music recently made the vocal to this Rivers Cuomo song available for remixing, so as a long time Weezer fan I was pretty excited to be able to run my meagre production skills over it. I think everyone must have a soft spot for Weezer; they have a penchant for combining great tunes with a self-deprecating wit that anyone can appreciate.
It's probably fair to admit that in the pantheon of awesome songs penned by Rivers over the years, My Brain is Working Overtime is some way down the heirarchy. Still, when the great man offers up a song for remixing you grab it with both hands, even if it's essentially a home demo with the timing a little wonky and the vocals straying from pitch. In truth it's just as well that he chose such a song to give us, because had it been one of the Weezer classics I would probably have been stumped as to what to do with it. As it is, I just speeded the track up by a few beats-per-minute, and tried to the best of my ability to record the guitars, bass, and drums in a Weezer-esque way.
I had a couple of goes at this. What you can now hear in the music player and on the downloads page is my second attempt, in which I added a synth, changed most of the guitars, and created a different intro. I did this because in the end I figured the first version I had done sounded a bit too close to Photograph, from Weezer's Green Album - one of my favourite Weezer songs. You can download that initial remix here if you like. I consider the second version as the final and 'definitive' one though, so, to paraphrase those old movie trailers, if you only download one Rivers Cuomo remix today, make it that one.
If you want to compare mine to the original, that can be found on the second album of Rivers Cuomo demos and previously unreleased material, that can be found on the second album of Rivers Cuomo demos and previously unreleased material, entitled Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo. There is also a cool video for the song here.
My Brain Is Working Overtime (James Merrifield remix)
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There have been so many great artists coming from Canada in recent years. This remix is of a song by Toronto-based singer-songwriter Emma-Lee, entitled Until We Meet Again. The original version can be found on her current album, Never Just a Dream, and is pretty much perfect just as it is, so once again this remix was really just a case of messing around with the song and doing something different for the sake of it. Emma-Lee's original has some lovely strings and acoustic guitar, and I was tempted just to lay some drums and bass underneath and leave it at that. In the end I figured that was just too easy, so I reluctantly replaced those instruments with some of my own and reworked the song into a more conventional pop format. And that guitar riff at the beginning was a bugger to play, by the way - more practice needed!
Because Emma-Lee's voice is so sweet and cultured, I couldn't smack a load of crunchy guitars all over it, so this one is a bit lighter than my usual efforts; I'm hoping you'll just think it sounds soft and mellow, and not like the backing track to a chocolates ad or some godawful Hollywood rom-com. So please, steel yourself and remove all thoughts of bunny rabbits or Valentine’s Day before pressing play...
Until We Meet Again (James Merrifield remix)
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La Roux are certainly a band on the up, having just today been nominated for this year's Mercury Music Prize, so it was a pleasure to be able to remix their latest single, Bulletproof. The original tune is a chirpy little 1980s-style pop song, and so I decided to do my best Duran Duran impression for the remix, adding a few guitars and a vaguely Andy Taylor-esque riff. One of the main features of those old Duran Duran records is how amazing and inventive John Taylor's bass parts were. I can't match his skills, but I think my bass line for this remix eventually turned out okay.
My remix has a touch of the Rio Grande about the verses, but then becomes a lot more rock once the chorus kicks in. This part kind of reminds me of Republica - which wasn't intentional, it just turned out that way. Maybe not the most fashionable of bands, but I quite liked them at the time. Plus, I think they still play Ready To Go at half the football grounds in the country. The chorus on this one has the same kind of vibe, I think – and having a song played on the Sky Sports outro is a secret ambition of mine!
If you want to compare mine to the original version of Bulletproof, that can be found here on La Roux's eponymous debut album.
Thanks for listening!
Bulletproof (James Merrifield remix)
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Way back in January I did a remix of Emiliana Torrini's Jungle Drum, so I've tidied it up a bit and uploaded it for you to hear. I think the label were probably looking for an electronic dance version, but this remix was about as far in the dance direction as I was prepared to go - that is, not very far at all! Having said that, you could certainly dance to my version after a few drinks, and I'd wager an indie-disco DJ could probably put this on without getting bottled off.
I had a kind of Lovefool-era Cardigans vibe in mind when I started. As usual I drifted a little from that remit once I got into it, but overall I think this is one of my better remixes. It did give me another chance to try out the wah-wah pedal, and the brass at the end is probably worth hanging around for.
Emiliana Torrini's original version of Jungle Drum can be found on her latest record, Me and Armini - a fine record, which you can purchase here.
Jungle Drum (James Merrifield remix)
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The excellent Fairtilizer website recently ran a Von Bondies cover competition, with a lovely Gibson SG guitar up for grabs as the prize. This cover of 21st Birthday was my entry. I didn’t win. I didn’t win! Listen to my song below, and share in my disbelief. No, to be fair, the winning entry was pretty good. But still… a Gibson SG!
If you'd like to hear the original version, it can be found on The Von Bondies latest album, Love, Hate, And Then There's You, which you can preview and purchase here.
And I suppose I’d better be a good sport and link to the winning entry as well. You’ll find that here.
21st Birthday
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Here's my remix of the Chairlift song Evident Utensil. The original version is a great little pop song with girl/boy vocal exchanges and lyrics extolling the virtues of pencils. I thought this one would pretty much remix itself - and then proceeded to make a complete dog's breakfast of it, adding a load of other instruments which I eventually realized didn't really fit the spirit of the thing at all. That’ll teach me for being complacent. So then I scrapped most of that version and just did a much simpler and more stripped-down mix, which you can now hear below.
Over the drums and bass there's just a couple of guitars, some very simple electric piano chords, the almost obligatory handclaps and tambourine, and some vibraphone and glockenspiel to punctuate a few transitions. I hope you like the result, and thanks for listening. And if you'd like to hear the song without all my bits on it, Chairlift's own mix of Evident Utensil can be found on their album Does You Inspire You.
Evident Utensil (James Merrifield remix)
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It's a shame that I had to use that ungainly initialism in order to fit the header on to a single line, since Somebody Tried To Steal My Car is probably one of the best song titles I'm ever likely to have on these pages. The song in question is by the Berlin-based band Super700, and the car in question, if their video is anything to go by, is just about as desirable as my own 20-year-old Peugeot; let's hope sales of their excellent new album, Lovebites, are good so that they can buy themselves some fine German automobiles instead.
As for my remix, I nearly didn’t attempt it at all, since the original arrangement was already pretty much exactly what I would have wanted to do with the song, and simply creating a poor imitation seemed a distinct possibility. But I did eventually complete something, and in the end I think this is actually one of my better efforts. It did at least give me another excuse to use Siedlaczek and Tommasini's excellent trumpet emulation software, for a kind of mariachi-style addition to the introduction. In the middle-eight I also got to use my new Vox wah-wah pedal, with which I could definitely use the practice - it's a bit harder to play than I had imagined!
Anyway, I hope you like the result, and thanks for listening.
Somebody Tried To Steal My Car (James Merrifield remix)
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Prior to this remix contest I’d never heard of Valery Gore. From the photos on her website I quickly learnt that she sported a natty line in leafy headgear; also, that if we ever went out for lunch we shouldn’t order the soup. Soon after that I discovered that she had a wonderful voice and some killer songs.
With a song like this, I think the vocal has to be given room to breathe. I originally planned a minimal, subtle backing track using just acoustic instruments and hand percussion - such as in the style of Laura Veirs, for example - but as the remix deadline loomed I just couldn't nail that approach to my satisfaction, and so eventually succumbed to the familiar allure of drums and electric guitars. Nevertheless, it worked out okay, don’t you think? My favourite part is definitely Valery's harmony vocals at 2:29-3:00; I would have liked to have laid them under each chorus, as with the original song, but that became impossible once I had deviated from the original chords, and so I made them into a separate middle-eight.
The results can be streamed or downloaded below, and also on the Music page. You’ll find the original version of Shoes Of Glass – a little faster and more upbeat than my remix, unusually – on Valery Gore's latest album, Avalanche to Wandering Bear. (Lovely title, that.)
Shoes Of Glass (James Merrifield remix)
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Well, here's a pleasant change of pace! I took 21bpm off this, and it still sounds like a freight train. In truth, Alkaline Trio's I Found Away - from their latest album, Agony & Irony - leans a little closer to the metal side of rock or punk than I'd normally listen to (their bio categorizes the track as 'doom pop', which I guess is an appropriate description), so in remixing it I tried to bring it home to more familiar territory. Of course, you still have to respect Matt Skiba's lyrics and vocal delivery in order for the whole thing to gel properly, so I did my best to keep my remix on the right side of raucous.
I added new guitars, bass, and drums, and also doubled the backing vocal parts myself so as to give them more stereo spread - hopefully I buried them well enough in the mix that you can't actually tell it was me. Still, I like to think that the overall finished version has been indiefied (indierockified?) by at least 47%. And while we’re on the subject of words and wordplay, you possibly think that I was so eager to upload my remix that I made a giant typo with that title, but actually it is supposed to be 'Away' and not 'A Way'. Anyway, enough of such trifles – press play, and deliver the rock already!
I Found Away (James Merrifield remix)
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This is a remix that came together pretty quickly. The lead vocal track already had a touch of reverb recorded on it, and amongst the other vocal parts were some nice extended ambient effects, so I decided to try for something vaguely shoegazy. I was aiming for the kind of reverb-soaked heavily-overdriven guitar bands of the early 90's - My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, et al, or modern equivalents such as the excellent Blonde Redhead.
I kept the original drum track as the backbone of the song, and layered a simple kick and snare over the top for emphasis. All the overdriven guitar parts and bass were really just scratch demos that I had laid down quickly, intending to re-record them more carefully later when I had more time to think it over. In the end, though, they seemed to do the trick, and so I kept them all as is. Then I just wanted to add some top-end sparkle to finish it all off. I probably spent longer trying to find a decent metallic percussion sound for this remix than I did recording the guitars. Eventually I used the triangle sample in Halion One. For future use I should probably buy a real one, seeing as they're only 2 quid. Though ranked below even the humble guiro in the infant school percussion heirarchy, once you get over the stigma of feeling like you're five years old again and musically inept, the triangle is actually quite a useful little sound!
Anyway, I hope you like the end result. Exsonvaldes' new album, Near the Edge of Something Beautiful, is certainly worth checking out too, which is where you'll find their original version of Lali, a tight and melodic slice of indie pop. And if you want to try your own remix of Lali, the parts are available from the Fairtilizer website here.
Lali (James Merrifield remix)
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